March 25, 2007

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

Audiobook. Imagine hearing the details of sex involving a hugely overweight narrator who always refers to his hands as "squishy" while you are at the gym at the crack of dawn. And I pick his word for his hands to avoid more indelicate possibilities. The narrator, for most of the book, is trying to escape St. Petersburg after the killing of his father, but he can't get a visa because his father killed someone from Oklahoma. He is desperate to return to New York where he was known as "snack daddy" for his impressive appetite. Plot and narrative are not the point, of course. The best moment for me was hearing the passage where he describes his reaction to an orange comforter, "Lyuba's comforter
was the most orange thing I have seen this side of Accidental
College library, which was built in 1974, possibly by the American Citrus
Growers' Association." Working in a college library built in 1978, I think he's on to something with the citrus growers involvement. Fun book.

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Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

Audiobook. Imagine hearing the details of sex involving a hugely overweight narrator who always refers to his hands as "squishy" while you are at the gym at the crack of dawn. And I pick his word for his hands to avoid more indelicate possibilities. The narrator, for most of the book, is trying to escape St. Petersburg after the killing of his father, but he can't get a visa because his father killed someone from Oklahoma. He is desperate to return to New York where he was known as "snack daddy" for his impressive appetite. Plot and narrative are not the point, of course. The best moment for me was hearing the passage where he describes his reaction to an orange comforter, "Lyuba's comforter
was the most orange thing I have seen this side of Accidental
College library, which was built in 1974, possibly by the American Citrus
Growers' Association." Working in a college library built in 1978, I think he's on to something with the citrus growers involvement. Fun book.

In June we met Jen and Brooke, Bill and Mary, and Sean and Kim in New York to see the performance at Carnegie Hall of a piece that Brooke wrote. It was performed at Carnegie Hall on June 4 by Luther College faculty members.